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Thursday, March 27, 2008

This article in The New York Times definitely made me smile today.A group of ten-year old girls, some with scientist mothers, had a "party" consisting of learning about the ingredients in various make-up products and making their own lipsticks.

While, I was hesitant at first about this article, thinking it was a little bit of gendered thinking to let girls learn about science through make-up, I am very glad to hear about young girls getting involved in science in anyway, and, if they are additionally learning about the various skeezy products we put on our faces all the better.

Best quote of the article: “O.K., so there’s no pig fat in lipstick, but people are still spending hundreds of dollars on a tube of fatty goop." - One of the ten-year old participants

17 comments:

Tyler
said...

Is there any way to satisfy you people?!? You want more girls involved in science, so some genius finds a way to relate science to something most (obviously not you) girls would be interested in, and you complain about it too. Make up your freaking mind.

Ummm, are not girls already into science? Last I checked, everybody had the same oppurtunities in the sciences, and that girls were graduating with degrees in all areas of science. If you try to pull the "But there aren't as many girls as guys in the field" crap, im going to have to hit you in the head with a salmon. If there are less girls in science fields, then the ONLY reason is that there are not as many girls that like science as guys. It's not that they're not as capable or as educated, because Aimee kicked my ass in every science class we ever took...

Just like im sure there's less guys that are into fashion and interior design. There's guys that are out there doing these things, and have the same oppurtunities as women, but there just are not as many. Not because guys can not do it, just because it is not as intersting to most of them. Im willing to bet that the lack of men in this field doesn't bother you as much as the lack of women in the sciences bothers you though...

I think one of the major problems with females in the science world is mentoring (I might be wrong! Feel free to correct me!).

There, originally (ambiguous, I know), more men in the sciences than women. So when more men came into the sciences, they had men to mentor them, and help them succeed. When women entered the sciences, perhaps the men were less willing to mentor them, to help them advance their knowledge, etc. so women had a harder time finding success in those fields.

Well, mine wasn't supposed to be hateful...like Tylers...Mine was just to point out that if you looked at this as basic statistics, that men and women have the same chance of being in the sciences. Just something to think about.

Yeah, see, more females teach up through high school than do males. Not something to complain about. I just think that women are better with younger kids. Not that men can't handle them, or that women can't handle older people, just more women are intested/amused with children then are men.

Well, from reading the article, it looks like the girls had fun learning about makeup... how unusual. By the way, what do girls that young even need makeup for? Also, there have been a number of influential/successful women scientists (Marie Curie and Rosalind Franklin for instance), so I don't think there's much of an argument for women being discriminated against (at least presently).

As the baby-boomers retire, and our generation and the next take over many of these fields, the disparity between men and women will likely plummet. Much of this number difference can be attributed to the previous generations, and alot of the rest is purely that men are more interested than women in some subjects. Other subjects are much more interesting to women than men in general.

Ha. Jeez. I posted this went to class, came back, and found nine comments. I LOVE it. Thanks for the feedback.

Okay, first comment, I was satisfied, Tyler, hence the 'it made me smile' line. And Amelia said you have some issues with some of my posts, so please let me know, im or write me an email (totaldreamer29@gmail.com or katiemaedreamer (aim)) and please don't insinuate anything about me personally in your posts, considering we have never met.

And, we are the second generation of Title X ( I think that's correct, better known for its impact on girls in sports), so we are all finally reaping the positive benefits of allowing girls the same opportunities as boys in schools. So Yay. And I agree. I've had about equal male and female science teachers, which I never even realized, but it is awesome.

Women are now equal to men in graduating from college, so I am definitely happy about that. I was just noting a great, unique way that young girls are being introduced to the field.

There are also some things men are more biologically and psychologically suited for than women, and vice versa (not necessarily science). And is it really bad to have some occupations be dominated by one gender, as long as it is possible for the other gender to get in? I for one am looking to enter a traditionally female-heavy field. This part is directed towards Kate: The issues with posts are more philosophical in nature, just ask Aimee what a conservative nut I am. I may have misread the use of the word "skeezy" describing make-up. Also, not to be mean or anything, but just so you know it was title IX, not X.

I meant 'skeezy' as in the ingredients in make-up which are lots of animal fats, oils, and even crushed bugs.

And I thought I had the Title wrong, but I'm illegally posting from work, so I didn't want to have too many tabs open in case my boss walked by.

Anyway, I don't disagree that biology can play a part in career decisions, I just want to acknowledge that some of the time its not biology, but expectations from society or exclusion based on gender, race, religion, or class that does limit career fields.

And Amelia was totally on to something with the mentoring issue. We talked about it in our GWST 101 class. I will try to find the article later.

Yeah, but sometimes I think past society is looked at a little too much. All sorts of things that generally were not even close to being accepted by past generations are gaining more acceptance. Things are not even near perfect, but the world is not going to change over night. It may take several generations, but things seem to be heading in the right direction.

I remember Polaski (that was are History teacher in HS) talking about studies that where done about raising kids of different gender the same way. They would have the parents give all there kids the same toys and treatment and not be bias towards gender. (I could be wrong) They found that girls where more passive while boys where more aggressive. When put in a room full of different toys, boys would, for the most part, pick up the guns and Legos while girls would pick up Barbie dolls and tea sets. I hoping Aimee/Tyler could contact him and ask him if he had the article.